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Archive | January, 2013

Estimating recession probabilities using Gross Domestic Product & Income

By RecessionALERT on January 23, 2013 in Research Papers

” The NBER does not define a recession in terms of two consecutive quarters of decline in real GDP. Rather, a recession is a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDP, real income, employment, industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales.” – https://www.nber.org Every month, […]

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Coincident data not playing nice with the bears

By RecessionALERT on January 16, 2013 in Reflections

Over the last two months we had Real Retail Sales, Industrial Production, Personal Incomes and Non-Farm payrolls all pushing new expansion highs. The only data not in for December now is Real Incomes. In addition we have noted upward revisions as opposed to the downward revisions promised by the recession-is-here camp. With neither leading nor […]

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Structural distortions hazardous to recession forecasting

By RecessionALERT on January 14, 2013 in Research Papers

Very few people realise just how close we came to a recession in the past 12 months, purely on an economic indicators perspective and not counting external risks such as the Fiscal Cliff debate. However, many traditional long leading indicators based on for example the yield curve and the unemployment rate, belie just how close […]

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